


wore out the soles of my travelin' shoes

by ignipes



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-23
Updated: 2008-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 09:25:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the longest they've been apart in more than twenty years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wore out the soles of my travelin' shoes

Half an hour after Spencer gets home, his phone rings.

"You have to talk him out of the Communist grindylow," Brendon says in a rush. "I will give you my _soul_ if you do this one thing for me. Oh, hey, Shane and I have a bet, but you should lie just to make me win and tell me that you had to eat a sheep's eye at some point. You did, right? Was it all gross and squishy? How were your flights? If you'd told me when you were getting in I totally would have picked you up in my new car. Hey, you haven't even seen my new car, it's _awesome_ , and red."

He pauses for breath, and before he can go on Spencer says, "Hi, Brendon. How are you?"

Brendon laughs. "Dude, I can't believe you're finally fucking home. I've missed your stupid face so much. I'm inviting myself over for dinner tomorrow."

Spencer's planning to spend all day tomorrow blissfully stretched out on the bed with the curtains drawn and the air conditioner on full blast, but he smiles into the phone and says, "I hope you like sheep's eyes."

"And monkey brains?" Brendon asks hopefully.

"If Whole Foods has any fresh ones in. Maybe cockroaches too."

"Awesome." There's a pause, and it sounds like Brendon is wrestling with a plastic wrapper on the other end. "Hey, Spencer."

Spencer stares out his kitchen window and yawns. "Yeah?"

"I really am glad you're home."

His back yard is a rectangle of dead brown grass. Leaves litter the patio and the fence needs stained, and all but one of the chairs are stacked in the shadows by the side of the house. The last chair is in the middle of the lawn, empty of its cushions, and Spencer can't remember why the hell he would have put it there before he left. He yawns again. "Me too," he says. "It's good to be home."

"And I'm serious about the grindylow," Brendon says. "When he wakes up, tell him we have things to discuss."

"Okay," says Spencer. A second later his jet-lagged brain catches up to the conversation. "Wait, what? When who wakes up? And what the fuck is a grindylow?"

"When Ryan wakes up," Brendon says, the _duh, obviously_ apparent in his voice. "I'm sure he'll be happy to tell you all about the grindylow. The singing, dancing, Communist grindylow. Look, I have to go, but me and Shane really are coming over for dinner tomorrow. And I'm glad you're home." He hangs up without saying good-bye.

Spencer sets his phone on the counter and stares at it for a moment. He could make coffee, he thinks. Unpack, do laundry, go grocery shopping. Do all the things you're supposed to do when you get home from a long trip.

Or he could go to sleep. He slept on the flight over the Pacific for a few hours, but at the pilot's quiet announcement that Denali was visible from the left side of the plane, he slid his window shade open to see the blinding snowcapped peaks and didn't slide it shut again. His eyes feel gritty, his back aches, and there's a real bed with a real pillow not very far away.

He leaves his backpack on the living room floor, shoes and jacket dropped beside it, and climbs the stairs. The house is quiet; he likes to think it's been holding its breath, waiting for him. The door to his bedroom is open, the curtains closed and the air cool. He's halfway across the room and tripping over a pair of shoes that are definitely not his own before he realizes that he can't collapse on the bed in a careless sprawl because there's already somebody there, and what Brendon said suddenly makes more sense. A little more sense, anyway. The "when he wakes up" part, not so much the important message about the singing and dancing whatever-the-fuck part.

Ryan's lying face down, arms and legs thrown out every which way. He's drooling on Spencer's pillow, a sure sign that he's sleeping like the dead and nothing short of cymbals crashing inches from his ear will wake him. (Spencer knows; he's done experiments.) But Spencer tries not to jostle the bed too much when he lies down, just rearranges Ryan's limbs enough to give himself room, tugs the non-drooled-on half of the pillow closer, and closes his eyes. "Don't you have your own bed, in your own house?" Spencer asks, the words made long and breathless by another yawn.

Ryan mumbles something, it might be _hey_ or _you're home_ or nothing at all. He rolls closer, tucking himself alongside Spencer, warm and sleep-soft against the too-dry chill of the air conditioned room. A few minutes later he starts to snore quietly, and Spencer smiles at the ceiling without opening his eyes.

~

  


Exactly two weeks after they played their last show, Spencer started making lists.

He'd always figured it would take him longer than that, a few months at least to wind down, to stop feeling the vibrations in his bones, the humming in his ears, to get tired of the _quiet_.

It was never really quiet, though. There were things to do, people to see. Interviews, phone calls, a hundred and one different ways to say, "It's the right thing for us to do, and the right time." Spencer didn't really give a fuck if anybody else understood, but that didn't stop them from asking.

"Mom's afraid you're going to snap and punch somebody and start running around in public with your underwear on your head," Jackie told him one day. She was drinking something through a straw while she talked, careless slurps and swallows carrying loudly over the phone.

"I might," Spencer said. "Maybe the boxers with the hearts on them? Or the roses, that might be better."

"Ew, okay, I did not need to know that my brother owns boxers with flowers on them." Another noisy slurp, the rattling sound of ice in a glass. "Seriously, just call her and tell her you're writing the great American novel or something so she stops bugging _me_ about your inevitable post-rock star breakdown."

Nobody in the world managed to say "rock star" with quite as much disdainful indifference as Spencer's sisters, and that was why he loved them so much. He sighed. "I'm not going to have a breakdown."

"Duh," Jackie agreed. " _I_ know that, but I'm not Mom. You know how she is."

In retrospect, it was a little bit embarrassing to admit that it was his mother's worry that got him moving, but Spencer hung up the phone and stared out the window for a while. When the sun reflecting on the windows across the street began to hurt his eyes, he went into the kitchen and started making lists.

~

  


Spencer wakes up disoriented and still exhausted. He waits a few moments before opening his eyes, listening to the relative quiet around him and trying to remember where he is. It's cool, the bed is soft, there's no traffic roaring outside, and there's a real pillow under his head. The room smells familiar - old-familiar, comfortable-familiar, like a memory wrapped in a soft sweatshirt, not the sharper, newer maybe-I've-slept-here-before familiar he's become so used to.

"Are you awake?"

He remembers: _home_.

"No," he mumbles.

A finger pokes his leg. "I think you're awake."

Spencer opens his eyes. The room is still dark, illuminated only by slits of sunlight through the closed curtains. "Maybe," he admits.

Ryan is sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed. "I was trying to wake you up by staring at you really hard," he says. When Spencer raises an eyebrow, he smiles innocently. "Did it work?"

Spencer says, "Only because you have such a creepy stare." He thinks about what else he should be saying: _hi_ and _how are you_ and _I didn't know you would be here_ and _missed you, missed you_. But his chest feels tight, compressed and constricted like that time Jon bet Brendon a hundred bucks they could all four squeeze into one bunk and they had to risk life and limb to prove it. What he comes up with instead is, "Is that my shirt?"

Ryan looks down and shrugs. "I dunno. Probably?"

It's a black t-shirt advertising some band they'd played with years ago, people they haven't talked to since. Spencer remembers picking it up from the merch stand because there was no time to do laundry. It's too big on Ryan. His collarbones are sharp, his shoulders thin, his hair grown out and shaggy and he looks about fifteen years old. There's nothing Spencer wants to do more than haul him into a hug and hang on for an hour or two.

He clears his throat. "Did you come over to welcome me home?"

The look Ryan gives him is wide-eyed and a little startled, but his voice is carefully flat when he says, "You've been gone forever."

A few months isn't forever, but Spencer feels a pang of guilt, quickly brushes it away. "I emailed you like every day," he points out. "And I sent you a million postcards." He doesn't know why he's annoyed. He's _not_ annoyed, not really, just tired and jetlagged and hungry and in desperate need of a shower. Ryan never asked him not to go, never asked him to come home sooner, never said anything about it except, _You're probably going to get really sick, like cholera or something,_ and later, _I told you so about getting sick, do they even have real doctors where you are?_

"More like two million," Ryan says. "I got them."

Spencer sits up and drops his legs to the floor, yawns and rubs his hand over his face. He can't quite decipher Ryan's tone and doesn't want to ask. He thinks maybe he's been gone a lot longer than he thought, to be out of practice with that.

"What time is it?" he asks.

"Morning," Ryan says. "Ten. You were dead all night."

"Brendon's coming over for dinner," Spencer says. There was something else he was supposed to say, but he can't remember it yet. He inhales deeply, then scowls and sniffs more carefully. "Ugh. I need a shower."

"You totally do." Ryan smiles again, the careful blankness gone so smoothly Spencer wonders if he imagined it. "Go do that. I'll make coffee."

"Ooh, coffee." Spencer makes no move to stand up.

Ryan crawls over the bed and gives him a shove. "Go. You stink. We'll go grocery shopping when you're done."

Spencer stands up reluctantly and stumbles into the bathroom. He stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds - he can almost hear Brendon making the scruffy mountain man jokes already - then he looks down at the counter and blinks in confusion. Toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, brush, razor, an assortment of bottles he knows he never bought, none of it his. He thinks about opening the door again and asking, but something stops him. Instead he strips off his clothes, leaves them in a heap on the floor, and turns the shower on as hot as it will go.

The shampoo on the edge of the tub is Ryan's. It smells like Ryan and Spencer takes his time washing, closing his eyes and letting the stinging water flow over his face and reveling in the fact that there's hot water in the pipes and it's not going to run out any time soon.

~

  


The worst thing about being sick in a foreign country - about being _alone_ and sick in a foreign country - was that it was such a fucking effort just to call somebody up and whine.

It was the middle of the afternoon and so hot and humid Spencer thought he might suffocate just trying to breathe, but lying in the stuffy room watching the ceiling fan spin lazily was not making things any better. So he forced himself to get up, get dressed, put on his shoes, and he managed to do it all without throwing up again. He left the guest house and wandered down the dusty street, squinting in the hazy brilliant sunlight and trying to ignore the smell of diesel and rotting vegetables, the dull-eyed water buffalo with their prominent ribs, the vendors who called out hopefully and watched him pass when he didn't stop.

He found a shop with an international phone line. It wasn't cool inside but at least it was out of the sun, and he left the door of the little booth open as he dialed. The shopkeeper was watching him through the curling letters painted on the glass. Spencer felt flushed and sweaty, grubby in his unwashed clothes and too big, too awkward for the plastic chair in the claustrophobic booth. He closed his eyes as the phone started to ring.

Four rings, and the line clicked as it connected. "Yeah?" The greeting was distant, noncommittal.

"I hate throwing up."

There was a noisy shuffling on the other end. "Spencer?"

"It's just so _gross_ , you know? It's gross."

"Spencer." Ryan's voice grew louder suddenly. "Are you okay?"

Spencer frowned and thought about it for a minute. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just sick."

"What kind of sick? Did you go to a doctor? What are your symptoms? What happened? Did you -"

"Dude. I'm fine." Spencer smiled to himself, and on the other side of the glass the shopkeeper smiled uncertainly too. "I just, I dunno, ate something bad. Or accidentally drank some water."

"Oh." Ryan was silent for a long moment. "You should be more careful. Are you using bottled water when you brush your teeth? And avoiding uncooked fruits and vegetables?"

Spencer moved the handset away from his ear to stare at it in disbelief for a few seconds. "I'm getting food hygiene advice from a guy who eats leftover pizza that's been sitting on the floor of a tour bus for five days?" As soon as he said he knew it was wrong, _eats_ instead of _used to eat_ , the careless present tense jumping in.

But Ryan only said, perfectly serious, "I read about it on the internet. The things you're not supposed to eat."

Spencer had read all of that too. "You're worse than my mom, I swear." It wasn't true. If Spencer had called his mom he would be sitting here while she clucked and cooed sympathetically, and it would be nice but he wouldn't be smiling, he wouldn't be imagining Ryan sitting at his laptop and typing "Asia travel diseases" into Google, his eyes getting wider and wider as he grew more and more alarmed. "I'll be more careful," Spencer said, because he could be a shitty best friend but he wasn't actually trying to make Ryan worry on purpose.

"Okay," Ryan said. "I also read that in New Delhi one person dies every day from falling into open manholes."

"You - what?" Spencer laughed and shook his head. "One person every day? Like, on average, or is it scheduled?"

"Shut up. I'm just trying to warn you."

"About dying because of a manhole cover."

"No," Ryan said patiently, "about dying because of a _missing_ manhole cover."

"I'm not even in New Delhi."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't watch where you step."

"I almost stepped on a dead dog the other day."

Ryan made a disgusted noise, and Spencer could easily imagine the face he was making. "Yuck, gross. No wonder you're sick."

"I didn't _eat_ it, moron. I just walked around it. Anyway, I'm tired of talking about being sick. Talk to me about something else."

Ryan hesitated. "Um. Like, what?"

"I don't care," Spencer said. "Anything. What are you doing?"

 _With all your free time_ , he didn't say. _Now that we're not a band anymore. Now that we have to find other things to do, other jobs, other purposes, other lives._ Spencer felt a knot of worry tighten in his chest. _Without me._

"Um. Well." Ryan sounded a little shifty, exactly as he always did when he wanted to tell Spencer something but knew he was going to be mocked for it. Spencer relaxed a little and waited. "Brendon and I are, well. We're writing a musical?"

Spencer blinked. "A musical?"

"Yeah."

"You mean, like." This is what happens, Smith, he thought. This is what happens when you leave them alone for too long. "A Broadway musical?"

"Yeah," and Ryan sounded more certain now, more ready to talk. "It's about, you know, fairy tales? Except not stupid fairy tales, like Disney shit -"

"Did you call it 'Disney shit' to Brendon's face?"

"- but more like the originals, with actual fairies, the kind that trick people and stuff, and steal them away, and that's the whole story. It's a tragedy, lots of people die. Not all of them are people." Ryan was getting excited now, rambling on in his familiar way. "There's this guy - we argued about whether to make it a guy, Brendon wanted a girl but I thought, that's too much damsel in distress - and he's away for a long time, away from, like, the regular world, and he starts to remember where he was..."

Spencer sat back and let him talk, making the appropriate noises to show he was listening. He thought about Ryan and Brendon writing songs about fairies - _fairies_ , he was never going to let them hear the end of this - maybe holed up at Ryan's house, or in Brendon's condo because Brendon swore his own piano made it easier for him to write, Ryan with one of his guitars and notebooks full of nonsensical lyrics, turns of phrase and disconnected images and elaborate daydream doodles in colorful ink. He listened to Ryan talk and thought about how relaxed and happy Ryan sounded, how there was no trace of the usual bitter jealousy and frustration that crept in whenever he and Brendon wrote together for long periods of time.

"...and we're thinking maybe a banshee, but every time I bring it up Brendon starts singing the banshee part and it drives the dogs crazy, every fucking time." Ryan laughed a little, but it faded quickly. "Spence? You still there?"

"Yeah. I'm here." Spencer exhaled slowly and rubbed his hand over his face. "You know, it's not really musical theater unless there's at least one song that sets all the neighborhood dogs barking."

"That's exactly what Jon said when we told him," Ryan said. "He wants us to have a talking cat as one of the characters."

"Just one?"

"Well, no," Ryan conceded. Spencer closed his eyes and imagined the reluctant smile Ryan got when he was trying to hide his fondness behind annoyance. "He wants an entire Greek chorus of talking cats, but then Brendon pointed out that cats never do anything in unison, so it would be a Greek chorus where everybody's saying something different, and that would be -"

"Awesome," Spencer said. "That would be fucking awesome. That gets my vote."

"It's not a democracy," Ryan grumbled. Spencer remembered when he'd said that before, years ago when they were sharing a shitty apartment in Maryland and Brendon was too loud and Brent too quiet and Ryan too ready to fight, and Spencer went to sleep every night worrying that their dream would be over before it began all because his best friend was the most stubborn fucking dickface in the entire world. But it didn't sound like that this time, and Ryan was talking again, going on about their ideas and disagreements and plans.

Spencer leaned his head back against the glass window of the call box and listened, nodding along until he started to feel dizzy and nauseous again, until Ryan's stream of words wound down and he asked, "Spencer? Did you fall asleep on me?"

"Not yet," Spencer assured him. "But I feel kind of, you know."

"Sick."

"Yeah. Sick."

"You should go get some rest," Ryan said. He sounded uncharacteristically soft, almost gentle, like he was right there beside Spencer and trying to soothe him to sleep.

Spencer swallowed and forced himself to open his eyes. "Okay," he said. _I miss you_ , he thought. _I wish you were here. I wish I was there. Miss you._ "Rest sounds good."

"Bye, Spence."

Spencer whispered, "Bye," and hung up.

It wasn't until he was back in his room, lying on the bed sweaty and trembling, that he thought about the time. Mid-afternoon here, that made it about three in the morning in Las Vegas, and none of them really kept rock-and-roll hours anymore.

Spencer rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling fan. Ryan hadn't said a word about being woken up in the middle of the night.

~

  


Spencer shuts off the water and steps out, dries off and wraps the towel around his waist. He decides he'd rather endure Brendon's mountain man jokes than make the effort to shave, and he brushes his teeth with Ryan's toothbrush because it's easier than going downstairs to dig through his luggage to find his own.

The cool hits him like a blast when he opens the door. Ryan's lying on the bed, his hands behind his head.

"I thought you were making coffee."

"It's on," Ryan says. He's looking at Spencer like he wants to say something else, his eyes narrow and his expression thoughtful.

But when Spencer raises his eyebrow in question Ryan only stares back, and Spencer feels suddenly, inexplicably awkward, standing in his own bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel and shivering at the unpleasant feel of water dripping down his back. It's stupid - he hasn't been embarrassed to be undressed in front of Ryan since he was _fifteen_ , for god's sake - and he is definitely not blushing. He's just too fucking tired, and jet-lagged. And naked.

Spencer turns resolutely away from the bed and steps into the closet. A moment later he steps out again. "Why," he begins. Ryan is still looking at him, still lying on Spencer's bed like he owns the fucking thing. "Why are all your ugly flowery shirts hanging in my closet?"

Ryan shrugs, a weird motion because his hands are still behind his head. "Because there's no more room in my closet," he says.

Spencer shakes his head and goes back into the closet, but after he's dropped the towel and found a pair of his own jeans - it's not just the flowery shirts, all of Ryan's pin-striped pants are in here too - he realizes he needs underwear, so he's got to pick up the towel again and go to the dresser. "Why?" he asks, not looking at Ryan when he crosses the room. "And why the fuck don't you just turn one of the rooms into your house into a closet, if you need that much space?"

He's pulling on his jeans - they're looser than he remembers - and tugging a t-shirt over his head before Ryan answers. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

Spencer throws the wet towel into the bathroom and goes back to the bed, collapses face down and shoves Ryan to make him move over. "Why not?"

"Because the people who bought my house might get kind of pissed if I still tried to use it."

Spencer blinks a few times, then turns so he's lying on his side, facing Ryan. "You sold your house?"

Ryan rolls onto his side as well, his hands tucked under his head on the pillow. "I didn't like it anymore."

"Oh." Spencer doesn't ask if he's supposed to know this already; he's pretty sure he would remember if Ryan or anybody else had told him. And there's a toothbrush in the bathroom, shampoo in the shower, clothes in the closet, shoes on the floor. "You sold your house and moved into mine? And you never bothered to mention it?"

Ryan smiles. It makes his face look young and mischievous.

"You invaded my house," Spencer says.

"It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission."

"You _invaded_ my _house_." Spencer reaches out and pokes Ryan's shoulder, hard, and Ryan's smile grows wider. "While I was too far away to defend it. You're like the Genghis Khan of house-sitting. You and your barbarian hordes of flowery shirts."

"Your shoe collection put up a good defense," Ryan says solemnly, "but the siege ended quickly. We're gonna have to get the carpets steam-cleaned to get rid of the bloodstains."

"I can't believe you murdered my shoes," Spencer says. "You could have just asked, you know. I would've said yes."

Ryan's smile falters a little. "You would -"

Spencer reaches over to poke Ryan again, and when he drops his arm to the bed his hand is resting on Ryan's forearm. "Shut up, asshole. Of course it's fine." He could ask how long Ryan's been here, or why he's in the master bedroom rather than the guest room that's always basically been his anyway, or if he and Brendon are writing their fairy death musical in the makeshift studio in the basement, or how Ryan feels about getting another dog, maybe a dumb, cheerful, clumsy puppy to keep the others on their toes. But the answers aren't important anyway, not yet. He says, "Of course it's fine."

Ryan still looks hesitant, and a little tense. "You didn't ask me to come with you."

"I - what?" Spencer frowns and props himself up on his elbow. "What? I mean. I thought - I didn't think." He hadn't. He hadn't asked anyone - there is no _anyone_ , he thinks, the only person he would have asked is Ryan - because that wasn't the point. That wasn't what he was doing. "I didn't," he begins.

But Ryan shifts a little, pulls one of his hands free and puts it on Spencer's arm. "It's okay. I'm not saying - I get it, okay? It was something you had to do for yourself."

Spencer never thought of it like that. Not like a journey, not an _experience_. His thoughts had been more like, hey, there's lots of places in the world we never got to see on tour, places outside of hotel rooms and venues, wonder what those places are like? Night trains through unfamiliar countries and crowded buses lumbering through towns, noisy hostels and endless chatter he couldn't understand, cities built on ruins and markets hazy with spice-scented smoke, a cacophony that become monotonous, a rhythm that settled into his bones. That's what those places are like, and he should have known how it would look from Ryan's perspective. He should have known Ryan would be mostly right about him without even trying.

"I came back," he says.

Ryan raises his eyebrows a little, a teasing _way to state the obvious, Spence_ , and he's still lying on his side, but he leans back a little, looking up and opening up, and his hand is still holding onto Spencer's arm. "I knew you would," he says.

Ryan is curled up on Spencer's bed, his head on Spencer's pillow, wearing Spencer's old shirt, and all the time Spencer was gone he never once asked _when are you coming home?_ Spencer had thought - he doesn't know what he thought, but it wasn't this. The longer he was gone, the emptier the house in his memory became, the lonelier the back yard, the quieter the nights, until he'd half-convinced himself that _home_ had a question mark attached to it, that it was a puzzle piece he'd lost long ago.

"Yeah," Ryan says. Spencer doesn't know what that's for but Ryan is smiling again, smiling like he's reading Spencer's mind and whatever he sees is giving him a reason for that playful glint in his eyes, that too-tight grip of his hand. "I've been waiting a long time," Ryan says. He leans up, pushing himself off the pillow and lurching a little to catch his balance. "A few more months wasn't a big deal, but I'm kind of over it now."

And he kisses Spencer, quick and certain, right on the mouth.

Spencer's lips part and he makes a noise low in his throat. "Ryan," he says. He swallows, licks his lips.

"You can't tell me you're surprised," Ryan says, and he kisses Spencer again. Slower this time, his mouth open and his tongue teasing along Spencer's lips, and Spencer's always thought if they got to this point again, it would be like the first time, over a decade ago when they were impatient and hurried and didn't look at each other at all. But there's nothing hurried about Ryan's kiss now, nothing anxious about the way he wraps one hand around Spencer's neck to tug him closer. Spencer gasps when Ryan bites at his lower lip, and Ryan laughs.

Spencer rolls a little so he's half-lying on Ryan, nudges his knee between Ryan's legs and grins when Ryan's breath hitches. "I'm not surprised," he murmurs, lips moving against Ryan's.

Ryan starts to answer but Spencer stops him with another kiss. He tries to start slow, careful, but there's no reason for that, not when Ryan is so open and eager beside him, making small, pleased sounds in his throat and running his hands over Spencer's arms and back, slipping his fingers under the hem of Spencer's shirt and teasing lightly around his side and over his belly.

Spencer makes an indignant noise of protest - not a _squeak_ , damn it - and Ryan pulls away again, their lips smacking softly apart, and wow, okay, this is not how Spencer imagined spending his first morning home. He thought he would be doing _laundry_. Part of him wants to hurry this up, to pay attention to his hardening dick and the arousal building low and tight below his spine, but Ryan is looking up at Spencer with a big, stupid smile, his eyes crinkling and his lips wet, and Spencer only kisses him again.

And again, and again, their movements slow and sleepy, words breathless and mumbled. Ryan's not the only one who's been waiting a long time, but there's no reason to hurry. They have all the time in the world now, the day stretched before them like shimmering sunlight on an endless asphalt road. There's no reason to hurry.

~

  
The coffee pot has shut itself off by the time they make it downstairs. Spencer stumbles over his dropped luggage in the living room and Ryan laughs. Spencer tries to muster up a retaliatory glare but only manages a dopey smile.

"You still owe me coffee," Spencer says, shoving Ryan toward the kitchen. "And breakfast."

"It's lunchtime."

"I don't care." Spencer stares down at his backpack for a long moment before he decides unpacking can wait, and instead he looks around his living room and kitchen instead. The signs are there, now that he's awake enough to notice them: books he would never read piled on the coffee table, scraps of paper with jotted notes scattered around, the coat closet door ajar because Ryan is the only person Spencer's ever met who actually uses a coat closet to hang up jackets rather than piling up junk.

"We don't have any food," Ryan says, his voice muffled because he's leaning into the refrigerator. "Unless you count half a jar of pickles and some eggs that I think you bought before you left."

Spencer sighs. "You're a terrible housewife, you know that?"

He doesn't wait to hear Ryan's answer - it sounds something like, "Fuck you, I'm an awesome - um, never mind," - and walks over to the basement door. He hates the way the door opens, blocking the hallway in a way that makes moving anything large downstairs a pain in the ass, but he's never gotten around to removing it. Maybe he will now that he's got the time. Down the steps and into the basement, into the studio they built there several years ago: they had all agreed without even discussing it that the studio should go in Spencer's house. It's dark and cool and smells like it always does, like junk food and smoke and instruments and late nights, too many people spending too much time in too small a space, so familiar Spencer has to close his eyes and breathe for a moment before stepping off the last step.

When he opens his eyes, he sees the postcards. He recognizes them immediately. They're all his postcards, the ones he sent Ryan, one or two or more from every place he visited, everywhere he stopped long enough to write a note. They're taped up high on the walls near the ceiling, a ring of colorful photographs encircling the room. A few of them stand out, louder and brighter than the rest, but already the memories aren't as sharp as the pictures.

He hears Ryan's footsteps on the stairs behind him. "I told you I got them all."

It's obvious they've been using this room to write their fairy musical. All of Ryan's guitars are here, and Brendon's keyboard is set up to one side. There's a hoodie draped over the back of the battered old couch that Spencer is pretty sure belongs to Jon. He wonders when Jon was here, thinks it was probably the last time he was able to get away before the baby is born. Spencer's drum kit is uncovered, a few things changed around from the way he likes it to the way Brendon likes it. He thinks he could be annoyed, but he's just glad somebody's been using it while he was away.

Ryan's arms slip around his waist from behind, and Spencer leans back into him. "I see that."

"It wasn't the same without you here." Ryan kisses the side of his neck.

"I came back," Spencer says, and Ryan laughs quietly. "In case you haven't noticed."

"I noticed."

Sometimes turns over in Spencer's mind, something Brendon said yesterday when he called. "I'm supposed to tell you - um, what the fuck is a grindylow?"

Ryan laughs again, his breath warm and tickling at Spencer's hairline. "It's a stroke of _genius_ , that's what it is. Brendon is a fucking liar if he said otherwise."

"I'm supposed to talk you out of it. Whatever it is."

"Not a chance," Ryan says. He squeezes Spencer a little and kisses his jaw. "We need you to write the wild hunt for us."

"Okay," Spencer says. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The wild hunt," Ryan says. "You have to write it. We can't."

Spencer thinks about it for a moment and fills in some of the blanks. "You're both perfectly capable of writing a really noisy drum part for your fairy death musical."

"Yeah," Ryan agrees. He rests his head on Spencer's shoulder and yawns, and he's leaning against Spencer now as much as Spencer's leaning against him. "But we don't want to. We want you to do it."

"You're so demanding," Spencer says, rolling his eyes, but in the moments of silence that follows he can - not quite hear it, not yet, but he can feel how it might go, galloping beats layered upon heartbeats, the hunted and the hunters at different paces, quickening and building and leading into - into _something_. He can't hear it yet, but he will. "Okay," he says.

"I missed you," Ryan says, pressing his lips to Spencer's neck and shoulder, slow and careful like he's thinking through each kiss.

He brings his hands up to Ryan's and twines their fingers together over his stomach, holds on tight. "Yeah," he murmurs. "Me too."

"Welcome home."

"Yeah," Spencer says. He can feel Ryan's lips moving through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. "It's good to be home."


End file.
